Family Politics
by ncfan
Summary: The backdrop of the Longbottom affair.
1. I: Barty Crouch, Sr

[Content Note (Applies to whole story): Fantastic slurs, torture, corruption.]

I own nothing.

* * *

**I.**

"How could you have been so foolish?! Do you know what would have become of you had you been caught?! Do you know what would have become of our family?!"

Bartemius Crouch, Sr., could not claim to be having a particularly good evening. Two of his subordinates, Jameson and Parker, who had vanished during the final months of the War had finally turned up in the Orkneys, both absolutely gibbering; the Healers at St. Mungo's had diagnosed their condition as being the result of repeated application of the Cruciatus Curse, topped off with badly-performed Memory Charms. The two of them had last been seen in the company of people who later turned out to be followers of the vanquished Voldemort, but any hopes of getting information out of Jameson _or _Parker were remote indeed. They'd been good people, unquestioningly loyal and hard workers; Crouch didn't suppose he'd be able to find their like again.

And now, on top of that, was this.

For all that he often had to work late in the past few months since Voldemort's fall and before that, Crouch could hardly have failed to notice the strange behavior of his son. Barty had always been shy and prone to avoiding large social gatherings; for all that he was brilliant and seemed to have a bright future in front of him, Barty simply was not a sociable person. However, he'd grown even more wont to avoid large gatherings than before, giving his excuses or conveniently falling ill—though Barty, like Clio, was ill often enough, the timing of these illnesses was simply remarkable.

Moreover, Barty had been coming and going from the house at odd times of the night and morning. He'd been doing so quietly enough that he never woke his parents—the only reason Crouch even knew about it was because Winky had realized and told him—and that in itself was suspicious. Crouch had, when first told of it, written it off as Barty going out late to meet friends, and though he wasn't entirely happy, he told himself that it was a normal thing for adolescent boys to do, and that Barty was old enough that he could trust him not to shame the name of the Crouch family. The fact that Barty never ended up plastered across the front of _The Daily Prophet _or some gossip rag led credence to Crouch's assumptions.

Now, it seemed, he'd been entirely off the mark, and would have done better to keep a closer rein on his son.

Crouch glared furiously down at the top of his son's sandy-haired head, eyes fairly bulging out of their sockets. "What possessed you to fall in with _them_?!"

His son had just confessed to him and his mother that he had been recruited by Augustus Rookwood as a wizard in the service of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the vanished Voldemort. Perhaps you could understand why he was resisting the urge to take Barty by the shoulders and shake him.

Standing by Barty's shoulder at the dining room table, Clio shook her head violently. "Dear, he just told you that he hadn't known what Rookwood was asking of him at first. He didn't know what was going on!" Though her shoulders shook and tears were gathering at the corners of her eyes, there was no mistaking the steel in Clio's voice as she went, "Barty, our son fell in with the wrong crowd. He fell in with the wrong crowd and recognizes that what he did was wrong. That's all there is to it."

Crouch felt all the anger go abruptly out of him, and he nodded, rubbing his forehead with a weary hand. "Alright. You're right, Clio, that's all there is to it. Barty." His voice grew sharp again as he addressed his son. Barty looked up at him for the first time that evening, his eyes frightened, and yet oddly veiled. "We will speak of this no more. I want your word that you will no longer pursue any of the activities that you were called upon to perform during your time in Rookwood's… _employ_." It was probably too much to ask that Barty cut off all contact with anyone he might have met through his work as Rookwood's subordinate; God only knew how many there had been, or how many walks of life they were rooted in.

"Yes, Father," Barty replied tonelessly. "You have my word."

Barty was naïve. Judging from the timeline he'd just given him, Crouch realized that Rookwood had recruited him barely a month after he'd graduated from Hogwarts. He knew nothing of the world and at Hogwarts spent most of his adolescence insulated from the true horror of the war. Rookwood was a Ministry official, someone Barty was raised to believe was trustworthy and well-intentioned. He'd fallen in with the wrong crowd. That was the only explanation Crouch would accept; any other was too appalling for words.

But this was still a disaster barely averted, and a disaster that could still unfold if things went wrong. Barty would have to keep the truth of his involvement completely secret. There was still a chance, however, that he could be exposed by others, either by former associates or by Ministry officials who went digging too deep. That would be a disaster to the Crouch family, would be a disaster to Crouch. Probably the only thing that was worse was the fact that Crouch now knew that a high-ranking official in the Department of Mysteries was a mole, and he couldn't do a thing about it on his own. He couldn't risk exposing Rookwood; everyone would want to know where he'd gotten the evidence…

"Master?"

Wearing her normal solemn expression, Winky appeared suddenly at the edge of the room, dipping a deep bow once Crouch's eyes were upon her, bat-like ears brushing the (impeccably clean) floor. "You has a visitor, sir; I has left him in the foyer, sir."

Crouch looked from his wife to his son, wondering if either of them were expecting a visitor, but they seemed just as taken aback by this as he was. It wasn't often that the Crouch manor received unexpected visitors, certainly not at this time of night. "Who is it, Winky?"

"Mister Abraxas Malfoy, sir."

Delightful. Crouch had a feeling that he knew what Abraxas wanted.

"See him in, Winky."

With another bow, the house-elf left the dining room, and barely a minute later Abraxas Malfoy, tall, gray-haired and looking more than a little worried about the eyes, entered the dining room. "Clio," he greeted his younger sister with a half-hearted smile.

"Abraxas." Clio repeated the gesture, giving him a smile just as strained as his was half-hearted.

Abraxas turned his attention from his sister to his brother-in-law, seeming not to even notice the presence of his nephew in the dining room. "Barty. I apologize for visiting without giving you some warning, but I was wondering if we could speak in private?"

Yes, Crouch definitelyknew what Abraxas wanted. "Of course," he said in decidedly clipped tones.

Leaving Clio and Barty behind, the two men went into the sitting room off to the side from the foyer, Crouch firmly shutting the door behind him and scanning the room to be sure that Winky wasn't there before getting down to business. "Alright, Abraxas, what is it?"

Sitting in a ever-so-slightly overstuffed armchair, Abraxas was trying entirely too hard to act nonchalant and at his ease, and came off instead as bearing a distinct air of desperation on his person, barely hidden and easily discernible to anyone who knew what to look for—and in more than twenty-five years of marriage to Clio, Crouch had had more than enough time to learn how to tell when Abraxas was trying to hide something. Abraxas dropped his smile, adopting instead a grim expression. "You are, I'm assuming, aware of my son's recent arrest?"

"I am indeed." Yes, Crouch was _highly _aware of Lucius's arrest earlier that week; Frank Longbottom had come into work with a still-healing broken nose, and Alice was swearing she'd never agree to go on a raid again.

Abraxas tapped the fingers of each of his hands together, a nervous gesture of his that Crouch had always known him to slip into when he wanted something very badly, but wasn't sure if he was going to get it. "Lucius is claiming the influence of the Imperius Curse as his defense."

Crouch raised an eyebrow. "Is he? I doubt that the court will consider that a plausible defense, given the performance he gave upon being arrested."

The elder Malfoy narrowed his eyes. "Are you so sure of that, Barty?"

In all honesty, Crouch was of the opinion that if his nephew was short-sighted enough to be caught after Voldemort had fallen at the hands of the Potter boy when his name hadn't even come up on the list of potential Death Eaters _during _the War, then he probably deserved Azkaban. Lucius had had a free ticket to a quiet life, and he had squandered it. He had foolishly gotten himself caught in a raid on a suspected meeting place for Voldemort's followers. Once again, Crouch thought that if Lucius was really that short-sighted, he really did deserve to go to prison. Thoughtlessness got one nowhere in the Wizarding World.

"After all, Barty, you _know _Lucius," Abraxas went on, his eyes suddenly very keen. "If you were to support his claim, it would go much better for him, I think. I'd rather my grandson didn't have to grow up never knowing his father. And Lucius is hardly the first young Wizard to have simply fallen in with the wrong group of people without realizing it."

He knew.

Ugly color flooded into Crouch's face. Abraxas took one look at the expression on his brother-in-law's face, eyes bulging once more, and understandably flinched, utterly bewildered. But after a moment, Crouch reined in his anger and fell back into his chair, brow creased in contemplation.

Abraxas wouldn't expose Barty. He had to know that if he did that, Crouch would do the same to Lucius in a heartbeat, and damn family connections. Exposing Barty would gain Abraxas nothing, and lose him a great deal. He wasn't going to do that.

As for Crouch himself, he'd not gotten as high in the Ministry as he had, nor as high as he was intending to go, by being an ideologue. Neither by being inflexible. His objective as regarded Dark Wizards was to ensure that Voldemort never returned. Those who followed him could be discouraged from going looking for him (as no body had ever been found at Godric's Hollow, all the Wizarding World could do was assume that Voldemort was still alive) by being thrown into Azkaban for the rest of their lives, but the assurance that they were being closely watched by the Ministry, more specifically by the man who had a reputation of being the most ruthless Dark Wizard-catcher of modern times worked just as well. Sometimes, you just had to cut corners. If it meant ferreting out five more Dark Wizards, letting one go free, and being sure that you knew what they were doing, was just a trade that had to be made.

He could get Lucius cleared of all charges, if he so wished. Crouch was embarrassed (and frankly furious) to discover that since the War had drawn to an abrupt shut and the atmosphere of terror and paranoia that had so pervaded Wizarding Britain had withdrawn like a storm front blown away by a strong wind, he was starting to lose followers. He was starting to lose followers, but he still had more than enough clout to get Lucius cleared if he wanted to.

And there were ways this bargain could benefit Crouch and the Ministry, as well.

"Alright, Abraxas. I'll see to it that Lucius is cleared of the charges against him." Abraxas's light gray eyes lit up, but Crouch cut him off before he could say anything more. "On two conditions."

"Name them," Abraxas said promptly, clearly willing to agree to anything within reason.

Crouch glared sternly at his brother-in-law. "The first is the surety of your son's good behavior. The second is the promise that you and Lucius will keep your followers and his _in line_. I do not want to hear that any of the followers of the Malfoy family have been getting up to their old tricks. If either of these conditions are not met, you can consider our agreement void, and you can expect a Ministry raiding party at the gates of the Malfoy manor within the hour."

Abraxas's face shone with relief. "It's a deal, Barty." As they shook hands on it, he said earnestly, "Thank you."

Sitting ramrod straight in his chair after Abraxas left, Crouch stared out the window into the night and hoped that Abraxas would be sufficiently able to control his son. Something told him that work was going to become significantly more complicated for him if Abraxas could not.

* * *

For all that it's claimed that Crouch was a fanatical Dark Wizard hunter, an awful lot of Dark Wizards (Lucius Malfoy included) got off on Imperius Curse defenses at the end of the First War. Besides, the two who claimed that Crouch, Sr., was a fanatic (his son and Sirius), both had reasons to hate him and be biased against him. Also, house-elf diction is _so _strange; makes one wonder if their language (if they have one) has very different rules regarding tenses than English.


	2. II: Lucius Malfoy

**II.**

When sent to Azkaban, Lucius Malfoy had been put in the cell directly opposite Sirius Black's, and he could see his cousin-by-marriage, and talk to him had he desired—and he had _not _desired to speak with such a blood traitor as Dumbledore's follower, friend of Mudbloods and Half-Breeds. However, just a few weeks' worth of observation (when Lucius managed not to relive his worst memories constantly, that is) of Black was… _telling_.

Though the Wizarding public at large supposed that Black had secretly been a follower of the Dark Lord's, and that he had murdered Peter Pettigrew, anyone amongst the community of the Dark Lord's followers with half a brain (which Lucius supposed meant that if someone merged Crabbe and Goyle into one person, they'd count) knew what had really happened. Black was a blood traitor through and through; he would never have come over to the Dark Lord's side. Lucius had to admit though, he hadn't expected Pettigrew to display the presence of mind to manage to cut off his finger and _still _fire off a curse powerful enough to kill twelve people and then flee the scene, successfully faking his own death. Obviously there was more to the sniveling little man than Lucius had given him credit for.

Not that he'd ever admit it.

Black was certainly interesting to look at, though.

Lucius had not been caught during the days of the War, nor even during the days immediately following it. He had been caught three months after the Dark Lord's fall, in a meeting place used by him and his following subordinate to the Dark Lord since first he had joined his cause, attempting to rally them for one last strike against the Muggles, just to let the Wizarding World know that it was not over, and the Dark Lord's followers were not gone. In hindsight, Lucius recognized that perhaps it would have been better to choose a more discreet meeting place—or that it might have been better to have simply chosen to lie low as Narcissa had advised him, rather than giving himself over to one last grand gesture.

Lucius knew what he was in for, and immediately after arrest had acted as though coming out of a trance and claimed that he had been under the influence of the Imperius Curse; fortunately he had enough experience with casting the curse to know how those under its influence behaved. Who knew if it would work? Lucius also knew enough about Dementors to know better than to dwell on his chances of getting off and out of Azkaban.

Refusing to dwell on anything much at all from his past for fear that the Dementors would suck it out of his head and leave him with nothing but despair (and he was feeling bad enough already), Lucius sat at the edge of his cell, and watched Black.

Black was not like the other prisoners, not like what Lucius sometimes feared he was becoming. He didn't scream, or wail. He didn't gibber. He didn't sit huddled in a corner muttering to himself. He didn't refuse what meager food and water he received the way others in the final stages of madness would. He was, as far as Lucius could tell, perfectly lucid. He accepted his meals. He would stand, and pace, or sit and stare out the narrow window. When new inmates were brought in, if some of them tried to talk to Black he would respond. He seemed to notice the grime and filth of the cell he inhabited, padded with straw, nearly as much as Lucius did.

He was perfectly sane. Or perhaps he'd been driven so thoroughly mad by his circumstances, by the knowledge that he was innocent and that he would never escape, that he had retreated into a state closely-enough resembling sanity to pass for it to the naked eye.

Insanity in any form unnerved Lucius. He hoped, hoped beyond hope in that filthy cell, that he would never end up like Black.

That was then. This was now.

Lucius had been released from Azkaban. He had gone back to his family, borne the remonstrations of his father and his wife with as much aplomb as he could handle, become re-acquainted with his son (who was first suspicious of this gaunt, haggard stranger who bore only a passing resemblance to his father), and came back to full health, putting his days in prison behind him as best he could. But the Malfoy manor had almost become a cage as Azkaban was.

He had been released from Azkaban as the result of the concerted efforts of his father and paternal uncle—and Lucius supposed that he should be extremely grateful that Aunt Clio was married to the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. There had, however, been conditions for his release, and Lucius couldn't pretend that he didn't know what would happen if the conditions were broken. Abraxas had won Crouch's intervention in exchange for Lucius's good behavior, and for the good behavior of anyone who followed him or his father.

Crouch need not have worried that Lucius would attempt to make it clear to the Wizarding world that he was anything but a victim of the Imperius Curse, a man coerced into serving the Dark Lord. From the moment he used the Imperius Curse as an excuse for his actions, he knew that he had lost his place in the Dark Lord's service. Now that he had returned to society as a "recovering victim", Lucius could not afford to go looking for the Dark Lord, as certain others wished to. The Dark Lord did not forgive disloyalty.

What would require far more time and effort on Lucius's part would be making sure that those among his followers who had also counted themselves followers of the Dark Lord behaved themselves. Crabbe and Goyle would be easy enough to control; for all that they weren't at all bright, they were unquestioningly loyal to him (That, above all else, was why they'd been given the Dark Mark). Macnair would be fine too, so long as an outlet was found for his odd fixation with death and killing—as Lucius understood, there was an opening for an executioner for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures; that would probably suffice. As for the others, well… Lucius would just have to keep a close eye on them. He had absolutely _no _intention of ever again setting foot in Azkaban.

All the same, though, life as a respectable member of a Muggle-loving Wizarding society was starting to seem stifling. Having to keep his mouth clamped firmly shut when she saw Mudbloods elevated to far higher ranks than they deserved was practically torture. And there was something else as well.

There was the matter of his dear sister-in-law.

Not for the first time, Lucius wondered how on God's green Earth the same parents that had produced his prudent, pragmatic Narcissa would have given birth to Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Narcissa was the one who had advocated that he lie low for now and during the war, but Bellatrix was a fanatic in a way that Lucius would never be. Her devotion to the Dark Lord was nothing short of obsessive, bordering on the sexual; it was certainly obvious that she didn't hold her husband in the same affections. She had succumbed to her youngest (and only, in her eyes) sister's pleading that she please, _please _lie low for now and not do anything stupid. But Lucius knew that the moment Bellatrix got so much of a whiff as to the Dark Lord's whereabouts, she would be heading there, searching for him with a single-minded, dogged determination frankly frightening in its intensity.

Bellatrix did not fall under Lucius's sphere of influence amongst the Dark Lord's followers. She had been one of Karkaroff's, and Lucius to this day suspected that the only reason Karkaroff hadn't named _her_ when he was dragged in front of a Ministry hearing to name names in exchange for his freedom was because he was too terrified of what she'd do to him to try to expose his former subordinate. If she went off somewhere by herself and wrought chaos and brought fire and destruction down on an unsuspecting public, Malfoy would be untouchable. She was outside his sphere of influence; she was not his responsibility, for all that she was his sister-in-law. And there was still more.

The Black family, for all that it had spent a great deal of its wealth upon casting protective charms on the ancestral residence in Grimmauld Place during the War, was still wealthy. They were still wealthy. The matriarch, Walburga, was in failing health, and the only surviving male heir was languishing in Azkaban, and had besides been disowned several years beforehand. Bellatrix was set to inherit everything upon Walburga's death.

Lucius was content with not becoming the inheritor of the house at Grimmauld Place; he didn't count himself comfortable living next to Muggles, even in such a house. But there was the matter of the wealth to consider, and Bellatrix's personality.

Even if Bellatrix's misbehavior wouldn't land Lucius back in Azkaban, she was a huge liability to him and his. She was a loose cannon and there was no telling when she would go back to carrying out her Death Eater activities, even without the Dark Lord. It was entirely possible (and given enough time, eminently likely) that she would attempt to rally the rest of the Dark Lord's followers around _her_, and that if she did so, Lucius's own activities would be brought to light amongst the general public. There was also the matter that if she ended up Azkaban, the Black wealth would revert to Narcissa and thus to Lucius, given that felons in prison for the rest of their life had no right to inherit, and that Andromeda had been disowned—the Malfoy coffers could do with some bolstering. Add to that the fact that Lucius simply did not like Bellatrix _at all, _and well, you wouldn't see him shedding any tears if she were to take a steep and sudden fall.

All he would have to do would be sure that Narcissa didn't find out what he was planning to do. For all that she loved her husband, Lucius knew that Narcissa wouldn't hesitate to inflict serious bodily harm upon him if he let slip that he was planning to set up her older sister.

So Lucius did what Narcissa and his own common sense always told him to do. He bided his time.

Lucius's chance came one evening near the close of March.

The Malfoys and the Lestranges had met for dinner at the Malfoy manor as they did every once in a while, when Abraxas felt up to hosting them and when Narcissa wanted to catch up with her sister, but _didn't _feel up to making a visit to the Lestrange abode (A decision Lucius completely sympathized with). Bellatrix sat at the corner of the sitting room, balancing a teacup in her hand and scowling down at her reflection.

For all that she distrusted him as much as he disliked her, Bellatrix lit up immediately at the mention of the Dark Lord. Her heavy-hooded, dark gray eyes practically shone at the mention of him. From there, all it took was a few discreet, well-placed hints—and Lucius had already chosen his other patsy.

"…I'm sure I heard Longbottom mention knowing where he was, when I was brought to the Ministry for questioning…"

The cogs whirred behind her eyes, and something cold as ice and hard as steel stole over her face as she nodded. Lucius could practically see Bellatrix forming a plan in her head, and resisted the urge to smirk as he finished with, "As you know, my hands are tied, but surely _you _can do something."

He'd not forgotten the Longbottoms either. He'd not forgotten the humiliation of arrest, nor the horror of imprisonment, and he most certainly had not forgotten the ones responsible. Two birds, one stone.


	3. III: Bellatrix Lestrange

**III.**

Since earliest childhood, Bellatrix Lestrange, née Black, had been a woman of conviction.

Where her erstwhile sister Andromeda had shamed the Black family and married a Mudblood, Bellatrix had done her duty and married a suitable Pureblood man. Where Narcissa hemmed and hawed about throwing in with the Dark Lord, claiming that caution was needed, Bellatrix willingly gave herself over to the side of the man (no, _more _than just a man) who would change the world for the better. Where her husband was unenthusiastic in the Dark Lord's service, and her parents eventually retired to their home in the countryside and refused to have anything more to do with him, Bellatrix's loyalty never wavered.

But then, the Dark Lord vanished. He was vanquished (no, not dead, certainly not dead, dead at the hands of a half-blood baby? Laughable!), and had fled, and none of Bellatrix's fellow Death Eaters, nor any of their subordinates, had any idea of where he might be. The moment the Dark Mark had nearly vanished from her arm, Bellatrix had felt an icy wave of terror and grief wash over her. They were scattered and leaderless, unsure of whom to trust—very few among the Dark Lord's followers had been given his Mark, and unless there was one among the Death Eaters who could vouch for them, it was nearly impossible to know whether an un-Marked witch or wizard was really one of the Dark Lord's.

So as much as she did not like it, as much as she would have far rather gone looking for her master, tried to help him and restore him to power, Bellatrix Lestrange returned to her everyday, stifling life. Returned to a life where she had nothing to do but laze around the house all day, and not go out if she could help it; whenever she went out, Bellatrix was just reminded that the Dark Lord was gone and the world was still one dominated by the unworthy and the unclean.

_Where could he possibly have gone? _she would wonder, running her hand over her left forearm where the faded Mark sat, red and forlorn. _What could the Potter boy have done to him?_

_No, no that can not be it. No half-blood baby could ever be even remotely in the same league as the Dark Lord. The boy's father must have set up some sort of protective ward before he was killed. That's the only explanation that makes sense; the Mudblood girl couldn't possibly have done it._

_So where is he? Why won't he contact me?_

It seemed to Bellatrix that her master would never return, and that his noble work would never be finished, and that all she would ever be able to do would be look at the world and dream of how it could have been, had the Dark Lord not met with disaster the previous Halloween.

But then, she got a lead.

Bellatrix got her lead from a source she'd expected least of all, her much-despised, sycophantic brother-in-law, Lucius Malfoy (Really, she didn't fault Narcissa for having the common sense to marry a wealthy man, nor for not shaming the family by marrying anyone but a pureblood, but couldn't she have picked someone a bit less slimy?). As you might imagine, Bellatrix held Lucius in the deepest contempt imaginable. He was a Death Eater, one of the Dark Lord's Inner Circle, one of the leaders of his followers (an honor always denied to Bellatrix, much to her frustration—was she not loyal enough?), and when he had been caught, and arrested, he had claimed that he was operating under the influence of the Imperius Curse.

Disgusting! If _Bellatrix _had been found to be one of the Dark Lord's followers, she would not have fallen on her knees like a common Mudblood and begged forgiveness. If _Bellatrix _had been found to be one of the Dark Lord's followers, she never would have claimed to have done so under coercion. She would have been _proud _to admit her devotion to the Dark Lord, _proud _to go to Azkaban if that was what it meant to be devoted to the Dark Lord in an unclean world. Lucius Malfoy had shown himself for what he really was—a craven and a gutless coward.

All the same, though, Bellatrix would be lying if she said she didn't know how well-connected Lucius was, even when he was doing his very best not to draw attention to himself. And this was something he had heard himself, apparently.

The Longbottoms knew something. He'd heard Frank Longbottom let slip that he had some idea of where the Dark Lord had fled to when Lucius was arrested. The Longbottoms knew where the Dark Lord was.

As much as Bellatrix did not like or trust Lucius, it was her duty to act on any lead regarding the Dark Lord's whereabouts; what sort of Death Eater would she be, if she did not? And it sounded plausible, she had to admit that it did. The Longbottoms had been deep in Dumbledore's confidence during the War, and they wereAurors as well. And Bellatrix and Frank had been in the same year in school, Alice just a year above them. From what Bellatrix remembered of her old classmate, it would be just like him not to be able to keep his flapping mouth shut when he ought to. Alice was barely any more discreet than him. It was entirely plausible.

And Bellatrix could not remain cautious when running the risk that if she did not pursue this lead, she would lose her only chance of finding her master.

So Bellatrix made plans.

When Karkaroff turned traitor, what remained of his network fell to Bellatrix; neither her husband nor her brother-in-law possessed the will necessary to take control of it. The remnants of Karkaroff's old following, largely composed of foreign wizards who had fled back to their own lands, was in no way as large as Lucius's mostly intact following, but it was not inconsiderable. She sent out five of the finest, enlisting them to discover where the Longbottoms lived, and how easy it would be to get a hold of them if need be.

In the Muggle world, there was a directory known as a phone book that could tell you the addresses of most of the Muggles in the United Kingdom. However, this was not the Muggle world, and even if Bellatrix knew what a phone book was, she would likely not condescend to touch it. In Wizarding Britain, the only way you ever discovered anyone's address was either to receive a letter from them, to have them tell you directly, or to have a third party tell you. Two Aurors deep in the confidence of Albus Dumbledore did not just go out giving their address to anyone they met on the street. They moved somewhere quiet and unexpected, yet close enough to neighbors that they could enlist their aid if need be. The Longbottoms were talented Aurors; they probably possessed enough skill between them to cast the Fidelius Charm upon their house, and if that was the case, then it would be a matter of tracking down the Secret-Keeper and getting him or her to break the Charm.

It took three months—the Longbottoms seemed to have at least learned something about lying low. Then, one sultry night in June, one of the wizards she'd sent out came back to her saying that he had information on the Longbottoms.

Bellatrix's mouth curled up in a mirthless, ghastly grin (the wizard flinched and counted himself very fortunate once he was allowed to leave) when she was told the news. The Longbottom's were living in a mixed Muggle-Wizard community in Somerset. They hadn't even put a Fidelius Charm on their house. And their home was not far from a location the Dark Lord's followers had traditionally used as a meeting place.

Now, to catch them.

Her mind immediately sprang to recruiting her husband and brother-in-law for the capture of the Longbottoms. For all that Rodolphus and Rabastan had never been as devoted to the Dark Lord as they ought to have been (at least not in her estimation; in the eyes of others, they were considered quite thoroughly loyal, but Bellatrix held Death Eaters to a much higher standard than her peers did), they would listen to _her _and do what she told them to. It would benefit them all if they could uncover the whereabouts of the Dark Lord and they both knew that.

Rodolphus, she decided, would be the one to apprehend Frank (and later Alice, if need be) and bring him to the meeting place; he was strongly built and could overpower another grown man easily. Rabastan would stand as look-out. Bellatrix would, ah, _take point _in the interrogation. But, but, for safety, there would be need for one more look-out. And Bellatrix knew of only one who would fit.

"Stop right there, Crouch."

The boy, really only eighteen or nineteen, stopped dead in his tracks at the sound of a familiar voice coming out of the dark street, and turned round to find Bellatrix's wand trained on his heart. Sandy-haired, pale and thin, young Barty Crouch took one look at her, took one look at her wand, and quailed. Bellatrix sneered.

Barty… She didn't know what Barty had done to avoid arrest, wasn't sure if he'd needed to do anything at all, but Bellatrix, from what she knew of him, was sure that Barty, like Karkaroff and Lucius, was the sort to renounce the Dark Lord in order to save his own hide. He had been one of Rookwood's, and had not even been in the Dark Lord's service for a year when he fell, but all the same he had been given the Dark Mark, for one reason, and one only: he was a security risk. He was the son of the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, ideally positioned to be a spy, and he had been given the Dark Mark only to minimize any chances of him betraying them.

"I have a little job for you, Crouch. Consider it an act of service in the name of the Dark Lord." Bellatrix ran her fingers over her wand tensely. The Dark Lord had tutored her well in the Dark Arts, and she fully intended to utilize them to the best of her abilities in forcing these Aurors to tell her where he was, but if she had to warm up with Barty first, then so be it.

Face half-veiled by shadows, Barty stared at her with narrow eyes for a long moment, suddenly looking significantly less younger and vulnerable than he had when Bellatrix caught him off-guard. His eyes grew hard as glass, and he nodded resolutely. "Of course."


	4. IV: Alice Longbottom

**IV.**

It could be tentatively claimed that things would be alright, now that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (or Voldemort, as Dumbledore now insisted that, since his vanquishing had meant the lifting of the Taboo, everyone call him) was gone. Certainly the oppressive atmosphere of paranoia and dread was finally starting to lift. Alice Longbottom had, just yesterday, even considered going for a walk down the street to the local bookstore without her wand. Almost, but not quite. Moody would never have forgiven her that sort of lapse in vigilance.

And that sort of lapse in vigilance had gotten more than a few people killed during the War; from what Alice understood, when the authorities came to Godric's Hollow (she'd not been among them), both of the Potters had been found without their wands anywhere on their persons, and it did not seem as though they had been disarmed beforehand. When they'd heard of it at work, Moody had even shook his grizzled head and muttered "_Well what _did _they expect to happen?" _

Despite the fact that they had been in the Order of the Phoenix together, Alice did not know the Potters very well—and frankly, what little she'd known of James, she'd not liked all that much. The Potters had both been much younger than her, only entering school some years after she had left, and neither of them had worked, so it wasn't like Alice was going to run across them in the course of her own job. That, coupled with her respect for Moody, had led her to bite her tongue and keep from chiding him for saying something so disrespectful about two very young people who had been killed and left behind an orphaned son.

But all told, Alice was liking the state of the world much better now that the war was over and Voldemort was gone. It wasn't what she'd originally joined the Aurors for, to be stuck on Ministry raids of people's basements and routing out the remaining Death Eaters—and Alice was not joking when, a few months back, she'd claimed that she would never participate in the latter venture again; that Lucius Malfoy had a tendency to completely lose his head when he got angry, and took very little time to progress to throwing punches (The fact that he got off on an Imperius defense was a travesty). Alice had joined the Aurors because the winds of war were coming and she'd been ready and willing to fight. She had little respect for those who, once the war had begun, had refused to take sides. _It's your world that will end up ruined if we fail, _she thought sharply, then and now. _How can you just sit on the fence and say that it hasn't got anything to do with you?_

Peacetime work was not what Alice had joined the Aurors for. But, she supposed, peace was better than war. At least in peacetime, Alice might be able to live to see her son grow up, might be able to guide him to become a man better than many of the people she had known.

It was late. Alice looked at the clock on the wall and frowned; nine at night, pitch black outside thanks to gathering storm clouds, and Frank still wasn't back. He was going out to take a walk, he'd said to her, not long after they'd put Neville down to bed. These days, Frank's rambling walks often took him far afield, and Alice was used to him not coming home for a good hour at least, but he'd been gone longer than usual.

_Maybe he got pulled into that pub by Mister Collins again, _Alice thought, lip twitching as she finished up with the last of the clothes-folding. _At least Frank finished washing the dishes before he left; he knows I don't like to clean house with magic, and if _I _tried to wash them they'd all end up on the floor in a million glittering pieces._

_Still, I hope he gets home before it starts to rain._

There came a knock at the door.

Alice had been made less wary than before by the end of the war, and the change of scenery (from London to Bath in Somerset) they'd made just before Neville was born had not helped. She had her wand tucked away in her pocket, but she did not think to draw it as she made her way towards the front door. Frank had probably forgotten his key again; attempting to cast an Unlocking Charm on the doorknob wouldn't work either, as the door was charmed to be resistant to such things. The knocking became louder and heavier, and Alice frowned, brow furrowed. "Alright, Frank, I'm coming; don't get your trousers in a twist. A little rain won't…"

She opened the door. And it wasn't Frank on the other side. Eyes wide and back tense, Alice reached for her wand, but a streak of scarlet light rocketed towards her, and she knew no more.

When Alice came to, she opened her eyes and was met with darkness. _Where am I? _she wondered frantically, struggling to stay conscious and finding even breathing painful from the dull ache in her chest, a leftover of the Stunner she'd been hit with. _Where am I? Where is my wand? _Alice tried reaching for her wand, but she could not find it. More to the point, she couldn't move her arms, or her legs. As full consciousness took hold of her again, Alice realized that her arms and legs had been bound.

_Idiot! _she raged. _You know better than to answer a door without your wand drawn, if the person on the other side hasn't identified themselves! You don't just assume it's Frank! Oh God, what am I in for now?_

She tried to Disapparate and couldn't; _Most likely someone's set up wards to keep prisoners from escaping. _Alice blew her short blonde curls out of her face, and tried to take stock of where she was. She was lying on a cold, clammy stone floor; her nostrils were flooded with a distinctly musty smell, and the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck all stood on end. It was pitch dark all around her, but as Alice lied there, prone and trapped, her eyes started to adjust to the darkness, enough to make out shapes the right size to be chairs and tables in the dark. The silence was deep enough to be an entity all its own.

Then, a door slammed open.

"Lumos." A man with a deep voice performed a Wand-lighting Charm, bathing the room in ghostly yellowish light, while a tall woman stood on tiptoe to shoot flame into a lantern. Two more men, both slimmer than the one with the lit wand ("Nox," the man said, and the light went out, leaving only the lantern light), stood by the door, but their faces were lost to shadow and Alice couldn't make them out. Before long, the more heavy-set man drifted backwards into the darkness as well, and the woman came to stand before Alice. A familiar face, pale-skinned, dark-eyed and sneering, hovered in the shadows and the lantern light.

Well…

Alice gaped up at her, recognition washing over her like a dose of cold water. "Bellatrix? Bellatrix Black?" There stood before her Alice's old schoolmate, never a friend but not an enemy either, grasping her wand in her long-fingered hand, eyes glowing feverishly like hot coals.

Bellatrix's sneer deepened and she shook her head. "No, not Black; Lestrange, now. Tell me, Alice, does one completely lose contact with the rest of the Wizarding world when they become a blood traitor? I had to remind your husband as well."

_Frank… _So they had Frank as well. A sharp stab of fear twisted in her gut. "Where is Frank?!" Alice stared up into Bellatrix's face, trying to find any hint of the answer there. "Where is my husband?!"

The sneer on Bellatrix's face morphed into a twitching, playful smile. Her eyes sparkled as she put a finger to her lips. "Shh, mustn't tell. He's a bit worn out, you see. Wouldn't answer any of my questions. Wouldn't play nice. Perhaps you'll be better?"

"Where is Frank?! What have you done to him?!"

Bellatrix giggled. "Nothing he didn't deserve." Her giggles broke into a short spate of raucous, mocking laughter, lapsing into ominous silence, broken only by the shuffling of shoes on stone—one of the men at the door shifting his weight nervously. Bellatrix pointed her long wand at Alice, eyes intent and entirely too bright. "And nothing you won't deserve, if you don't answer my questions.

"So tell me, Auror Alice Longbottom. Tell me everything you know about the current whereabouts of the Dark Lord."

Alice's eyes narrowed. She knew quite well what that meant. There was only one reason a witch or wizard would kidnap another and quiz them as to information on the whereabouts of the vanquished Voldemort. "So you're a Death Eater, then." Alice snarled, struggling at the bonds around her wrists. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you always knew me to be a woman with eyes I could actually see out of," Bellatrix answered immediately. "Whereas you were blind as anyone could be; always were. But you have a chance now, to prove yourself worthy, and sharp-eyed, and spare yourself unnecessary pain. Tell me, Alice. Where is the Dark Lord?"

Alice couldn't answer that question. She didn't know the answer, had no idea why Bellatrix would think she did, and even if she did know where Voldemort was, she would not tell the woman standing over her now. Alice was no fool. She knew what could very well happen if any of Voldemort's followers were to succor him, especially a powerful witch like Bellatrix Lestrange. But the fact that she didn't know at all did her no favors. If she had known, and had given up the information, Bellatrix might have been content to…

No, that was naïve. No one with any sense was going to let her go, not after this, no matter what Alice did or did not tell them. Once the inevitable "interrogation" was over with, there would only be two options left.

One, was that Alice would be hit with an especially strong Memory Charm, the strongest Bellatrix or one of her cohorts could muster. But Memory Charms could be broken. Alice knew that; she'd been called on to break them herself, more than once. They could be broken, and while the person who had both had their memory modified and then restored would never be quite the same again, they could give testimony, and they could identify their attackers. The second of the two options was far more practical, and far more likely.

Two, she would be killed.

She would be killed. Alice was sure of that. They may have already killed Frank, and were simply lying in the attempt to ensure her cooperation. Frank could be dead, she could be dead soon enough, and their son would end up like the Potter's son, growing up without ever knowing his parents. Another war orphan, except the war was supposed to be over.

But she would not snivel. She would not beg. _I will not be afraid, _Alice told herself, and tried to ignore her hammering heart. _I am not afraid of death. I am not afraid of pain. I will not betray my friends and loved ones in body or in mind._

Alice lifted her head, and stared squarely into Bellatrix's shining eyes.

"I don't know."

And so began the pain.


	5. V: Epilogue

**V.**

The trial was over quickly. The perpetrators had been careless, and had been caught quickly; the sounds of screaming from a supposedly abandoned building tended to draw attention.

Ultimately, the bravery of Alice and Frank Longbottom was laudable, but served nothing except to prolong their agony. By the time the authorities arrived and rescued them, nothing more could be done for them. It had been known virtually since the time of the curse's creation that the Cruciatus Curse, used by Bellatrix Lestrange in the futile attempt to extract information from them, had deleterious effects on the physical and mental well-being of its victims. When a victim was hit with it multiple times, especially in quick succession, these effects were multiplied.

No one ever got a word out of Alice or Frank. They said nothing, were silent. Their eyes stared vacantly into space. They knew not where they were, who their friends and family were, nor, so it seemed, who they themselves were.

They were well-liked, well-loved Aurors. Now they were worse than dead, and to top it all off they had left behind a two-year-old son, Neville, left in the care of his grandmother, Augusta. The public was enraged. They demanded justice. No, they demanded revenge.

At the trial, two men stared into space and said nothing. A woman sat in chains upon a chair as though it were a throne. A boy screamed to his father for mercy, and his father said to him that he had no son. They were locked away in Azkaban, among lunatics and Dementors, and that was to be the end of it.

Lucius Malfoy was not able to wrest the Black fortune away from its previous owners. Arcturus Black became furious at his attempts and said that even if Walburga was the one who lived at the house in Grimmauld Place, _he _was still the head of the Black family and he'd be damned before he saw so much as a Knut of his fall into the hands of the Malfoy family. He went so far as to re-instate his oldest grandson, Sirius, as his heir, in defiance of Sirius's disinheritance and his imprisonment in Azkaban. If Lucius wanted the money, Arcturus said, he would have to wait until every single Black family member was dead. And that included Andromeda and her daughter.

A year after he sentenced his son to life imprisonment in Azkaban, Barty Crouch, Sr., having experienced a change of heart, was in the middle of struggling to form a rescue plan, and always failing, when his deathly ill wife, always a skilled brewer of potions, provided him with a solution. Young Barty was smuggled away from Azkaban, wearing his mother's face. Clio died in prison, wearing the face of her son. A corpse would not shake off the effects of Polyjuice potion, and she'd not lasted long enough to exhaust her supply. She was buried in a grave on the desolate island, under her son's name. No one was forced to play the role that they had, whatever conclusion young Barty came to later, no one save the house-elf Winky.

Crouch intended to send his son off to some distant land under an assumed name, but was appalled to discover that his son was still possessed of loyalty to Voldemort—indeed, far greater loyalty than he had imagined. Disobedient and recalcitrant, once Barty had recovered he was all fire and rage for the man who he believed had abandoned his mother to her death, and who kept him from his ultimate goal. Barty was restrained under the Imperius Curse, and under Winky's influence. He was kept hidden beneath an Invisibility Cloak in his father's home.

Augusta Longbottom took her grandson to visit his parents in St. Mungo's over the holidays. She never felt that he lived up to their example.

Bellatrix Lestrange wasted away in prison. Her beauty faded, replaced by a gaunt unwholesomeness. Her eyes burned like dying coals, sunken deep in her waxen face. Obsession and fanaticism had already been present in her heart, but it festered there, and like a cancer it devoured her whole. What she would do to the unclean, impure world, if ever she was just given the chance.

Twelve years after the trial, a man disguised as another man was teaching at Hogwarts. He found that he enjoyed teaching students, as much as he ought to have been purely focused upon his mission. At Hogwarts, he saw old faces and new. He looked into the face of the Death Eater's son, and felt hatred for the one who had never lost anything of importance. And when he looked into the face of the Aurors' son, he felt a mix of pity and contempt for the one who had been left behind, and seemed not to know what to do with his survival.


End file.
